Around six years ago when the Spanish property bubble finally burst and the economy took a nose dive there was wholesale doom and gloom in the country. Here in the Baleares estate agents braced themselves for the worst and before long, the crisis that had consumed the Peninsula began extending icy fingers to our golden shores.

Foreign property buyers are flocking to Majorca

Foreign buyers became jittery as the pound weakened against the euro and local banks stopped offering mortgages while many resident expats feeling the pinch themselves and unable to ride the storm, began putting properties on the market. A few years back in one tiny village alone here in northwest Majorca, nearly 30 traditional terraced properties went on the market at the same time, a buyer’s dream but a nightmare for those desperate to sell.

All the same, while the sale prices of modest terraced homes and apartments decreased, larger properties and señorial mansions and estates across the… Read more

Despite Cassandra type predictions about the continuing demise of the Spanish property market, it appears that foreign investment in the country is growing steadily with Britons leading the way, followed by the French, Russians and Germans.

Britons are flocking to Majorca is search of properties

According to the Bank of Spain and the Real Estate Registry’s annual report, foreign investment in Spanish property was up 17 per cent in 2012 –the highest level since 2004- with Britons accounting for more than a 16 per cent share of the foreign market. In total €5.54 billion was spent by foreign nationals last year compared with €4.7 billion in 2011.

There are an estimated two million properties for sale in Spain, half of which are new builds so it would be foolish to imagine that foreign investment alone will be able to magic away the property sector’s current migraine. All the same, every little helps and if, despite a groggy economy, foreigners are showing confidence in the market, the Spanish government should take heart.

Surprisingly nearly 25 per cent of all foreign property buying in Spain is concentrated in the Balearic islands and in particular Majorca. Unlike in the Iberian peninsular Majorca’s economy is still fairly buoyant thanks to a guaranteed influx of holidaymakers annually. The travel industry believes that 2013 will be one of the best ever thanks to the island’s mild climate, golden beaches, excellent tourism infrastructure and wealth of golf courses, marinas and attractions. Most important of all is the huge choice of flight routes now available with new ones being introduced each year such as Vueling which now operates regular flights from Heathrow to Palma airport.

Perhaps because of Majorca’s desirability and the general view that buying on the island is a sound investment, there are few property bargains to be had. In some areas, terraced town houses and apartments have dropped in price but the stone built fincas and villas with pool or sea views in prime locations are holding their own. While in recent years the market appeared to be a little sluggish following the general property slump in Spain, things have perked up and it is the British who are now snapping up homes island wide.

Over the last few months I have received an unprecedented number of enquiries from British readers seeking advice about moving to the island which tends to lend weight to the findings by the Bank of Spain and the positive signals offered by local property agents here in Majorca. At an uncertain and gloomy time for Spain’s economy, there’s at least a tiny thread of light at the end of the tunnel.

Euphoric at its landslide victory over the ruling socialist PSOE party in Spain’s municipal and regional elections, the conservative People’s Party (PP) has vowed to get Spain back on track. I wish it mucha suerte, or as Cilla Black might say, “a lorra luck.”

Barely a week ago both the leading political parties were caught like a pair of rabbits in the headlights as, on the eve of their final electioneering sorties, tens of thousands of young, disillusioned Spaniards took to the streets to demonstrate about the dire state of the economy.

The conservatives in Spain celebrated a landslide victory over the socialist opposition

Using social networking sites to spread its message, the 15-M action group, also known as Democracia Real Ya, Real Democracy Now, set up camp in Madrid’s Puerto de Sol plaça and in other town squares across Spain. Even in Majorca’s capital of Palma, hordes of young people carrying… Read more

Is sunny Spain becoming the vice capital of Europe? According to some disillusioned expat friends here in Majorca it is, and spreading its virus to our paradise isle. They’ve got a point. In the last year the Spanish press has been busily churning out stories about crimes ranging from drug, human trafficking and prostitution rings to money laundering and political and local council corruption. And let’s not even start on expat criminals who hang out on the infamous Costa del Sol or “Costa del Crime” as it has oh-so wittily been renamed.

Stephen Henry Pitman is one of many criminals who fled to Spain

Just this week Stephen Henry Pitman, reportedly Britain’s most wanted criminal for supplying class A and B drugs, was arrested in a bar on the Costa del Sol, and last month eight Britons were discovered cultivating a vast quantity of marijuana in Alicante. But the Balearic Islands… Read more

There have been red faces in the Spanish government as a result of critical comments made by Maria Otero, Under Secretary of State for Democracy in the United States, about the way some Spanish regions regard the Castilian language.

Speaking at the Millennium Development Summit in New York, attended by more than 150 Heads of State, Colombian born Maria Ortero urged the Catalan speaking regions of Spainto show more respect for the national language, Castilian. Her pointed remarks were aimed at the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and the Basque Country where Castilian Spanish is often regarded as a foreign language taking second place to English in many schools.

In the Balearic Islands teaching in Catalan rather than Castilian Spanish is compulsory and many children are taught to snub the national language or at least to regard it as second best. Of course this isn’t a problem for those pupils whose further education and career is likely to be on the islands but students hoping to gain entry to a Spanish university on the mainland, other than the Catalan university of Barcelona, might struggle to succeed.

In Majorca, a young veterinary graduate, a native of the island, told me that she had studied Castilian Spanish in her own time in order to enter a good mainland university rather than opting for the University of the Balearics. She explained that some adverts for graduate veterinary posts actually discriminated against those who had studied in the Catalan dialect because the expectancy was that their Castilian language skills would be poor and the level of education not so high.

The United States has good reason to take a dim view of those Catalans showing antipathy for the Spanish national language given that Hispanics represent its largest ethnic minority group. Even the White House website is available both in English and in Castilian Spanish in order to cater for the 48.4 million Hispanicsresiding in the country.

Though undoubtedly rattled by the rebuke, it is unlikely that the current socialist government will pay too much heed to Maria Ortego’s words given its affiliation with Catalonia. All the same, with an ever growing population of Hispanic immigrants, sooner or later, Prime Minister, José Luis Zapatero might be forced to sit up and listen.

Spanish schools in Majorca broke up last week and island-wide thousands of cheery little souls rushed home in anticipation of the yawning summer ahead filled with fun fuelled days, holiday camps and family activities. The parents, of course, view things rather differently. In the Spanish system, the summer vacation means three whole months of diary juggling, begging favours of grandparents, neighbours and friends as child minding becomes increasingly complicated, and having to come up with endless enterprising activities to keep offspring fully occupied.

For children-and parents-summer holidays can be a drag

It isn’t easy. When I waved goodbye to a group of young Majorcan children to whom I give a weekly English class, one of the fathers urged me to consider starting an English club for the summer. “Just think, you could make a fortune!” he cried. “Every Majorcan parent would happily pay to have their child enrolled with you.” I love children but I also value… Read more

My Majorcan friend, Catalina, was complaining the other day about the effects of the economic crisis in Spain. She runs a property maintenance company in our valley and has given up trying to find locals to take on cleaning or swimming pool maintenance work, even at 15 euros per hour. Puzzled, I asked her how that could be when the country was supposedly on its knees. She gave a cynical grunt. The only people willing to work, she maintained, were immigrants from Eastern Europe. “Everyone complains about foreigners taking our jobs and yet they are the only ones prepared to be flexible or to put in the hours.”

Are work shy Spaniards a factor in Spanish crisis?

A local civil servant told me that the Spanish unemployed were unwilling to take on any job that meant they earned less than el paro, the dole. In other words in the current climate it was more favourable to carry on… Read more

Oh here we go again. When I first came to live on the island of Mallorca, I couldn’t get that oafish rhyme out of my head of, the water in Majorca don’t taste like it oughta, and it started me questioning how the word really oughta be pronounced. The local British newspaper, inaugurated in 1962, is called the Majorca Daily Bulletin and despite some calls to replace Majorca with Mallorca, is having none of it. After all, the Brits invented the j in Majorca, because they couldn’t get their tongues around the double l, pronounced y, so it would be churlish, surely, to offer them authenticity without a linguistic life raft? Also, let us consider the power of PR. The newspaper can’t just throw away 47 years of brand identity for the sake of accuracy, for heaven’s sake. Indeed who can say with total conviction that the jaunty j in… Read more